Image producing machines, such as printers and/or copiers and the like, often use printheads for ejecting ink onto an ink receiving surface, such as print media also referred to as the substrate, or an image drum which is then transferred to the print media, to form an image thereon. Some image producing machines use as phase change ink, also referred to solid ink. The solid ink is in the solid phase at ambient temperature and is melted to a liquid phase at an elevated, operating temperature. At the operating temperature, droplets or jets of the molten liquid ink are ejected from one or more printhead front faces to form the image. When the ink droplets contact the surface of the substrate, they quickly solidify to create an image in the form of a predetermined pattern of solidified ink drops.
An example of such a phase change ink image producing machine or printer, and the process for producing images therewith onto image receiving sheets is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,372,852 issued Dec. 13, 1994 to Titterington et al. As disclosed therein, the phase change ink printing process includes raising the temperature of a solid form of the solid ink so as to melt it and form a liquid ink. It also includes applying droplets of the solid ink in a liquid form onto an imaging surface in a pattern using a device such as an ink jet printhead. The process then includes transferring the image to the receiving substrate, solidifying, and fixing the solid ink to the substrate.
Typically, phase change ink image producing machines use a single print engine with a printhead that is fed by a single ink source/melter unit. The ink melter is typically positioned in close proximity to the printhead, so as the ink melts, it is deposited directly into the printhead ink reservoir.
However, some image forming machines use a plurality of printheads to form images. For example, each printhead in these machines may only be used to produce a portion of the image thereby increasing the image print speed of the machine. Furthermore, some image forming machines also print in color, using several different base color inks to print a color image.
It is desirable to provide a system and method of distributing phase change ink to a plurality of printheads.